


Further is Forever

by SublimeDiscordance



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: 2nd person POV, Afterlife, Comfort, Confusion, Dorks in Love, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mentions of Other Minor Characters - Freeform, Operation Pitfall (Pacific Rim), Panic, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 13:37:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5458373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SublimeDiscordance/pseuds/SublimeDiscordance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: “Raleigh and Yancy are reunited post-Breach collapse (how and why are up to the author) and have to readjust.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Restless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suyari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suyari/gifts).



> Huge thank you to kuro49 for looking this over for me. Any remaining mistakes are my own fault.
> 
> Story and chapter titles are adapted from the Crywolf song "Neverland"

Things happen for a reason, Yancy’d always told you. The Kaiju appearing had brought a world on the brink of annihilating itself together against a common enemy. Mom dying had brought the two of you closer together than you’d ever dreamed—closer than you’d ever _dared_ to dream. Dad leaving had made you stronger, made you realize that so long as you both stuck together, there was nothing you couldn’t do, nothing you couldn’t survive if you were determined enough to not lose one another. Being chosen to be jaeger pilots had let you share that determination with the world.

Yancy dying had...

You’ve never really figured out an answer to that one. After all, it was hard to come up with a _reason_ for living through what you did. The pain, both physical and something more all at once. The gaping sense of loss, of _wrong_ that still clung to every inch of your skin.

Other pilots who'd gone through near-death experiences while drifting had described an endless, instantaneous microcosm within their own memories, living through every moment again, feeling every low thrill, every loving brush of fingertips. They said it was like normal drifting, the mindscape between pilots where time always seemed to have less hold, but to an even more extreme degree. It’d felt, they'd said, like a lifetime folded into a heartbeat.

You didn’t get that.

Not the sight of him, breathless with laughter, massaging his ribs from where you’d elbowed him after he’d decided to grab you by the neck and mess with your hair and _fuck you it’s not like I wake up like this Yance!_

Not the feeling of his hand in yours, pulling you through foreign alleys, your constant anchor even before you realized he was so much more. That same hand holding yours again, over a decade later, grip almost bruising, your arms held fast over your head as he’d mercilessly ridden you until you couldn’t see straight. Not how his arms always felt more like home than any building possibly could.

Not the taste of his skin on your lips, your tongue, his tongue. Not the the shivers that ran through you, equal parts fear and desire.

Not the sound of his voice, soothing you, always calming, always steady, always more considerate than you had patience for.

Not the giddy burst of warmth that would flutter through your chest every time you actually took a moment to _think_ about it. How he _actually_ _loved you_ , the way you'd loved him since you figured out what love even was. How he was willing to _try_ , to build whatever the two of you could together in a world that’d lost its sanity long ago.

Instead, in the moment house-sized claws had breached your hull ( _Raleigh—_ ), had hauled ( _Raleigh listen to me!_ ) and torn ( _you have to—_ ) and ripped your brother from your mind, all you'd felt was agony. Pain. Fear. A freezing burn that’d crawled up your throat in a scream that felt like it’d gone on forever. The drift had stretched between the two of you until you could’ve sworn you felt the ligaments in your joints pulling, straining, tearing. Felt heat like a brand searing over your brain, burning out a sizzling, cauterized wound in the shape of your brother’s soul one neuron at a time. Billions upon billions of times, over and over and over again until—

Until...until it’d been over. Until he’d been...gone. A vast emptiness, a gaping hole in your side that refused to bleed, to scar, to do anything but burn long after your tissues themselves healed.

No body was ever recovered—probably dissolved in the blue the two of you had spilled in the ocean, they’d told you, as if that was supposed to be closure enough. No trace of Yancy was left anywhere. Nothing but the half-phantom that haunted your nightmares and the few pieces of his soul shining out from a handful of photographs.

There’d been only one he'd actually _let_ you take, the camera-shy idiot. It’d been after you’d both gotten accepted into the program and the techs had gotten you both _completely_ shitfaced drunk. You’d pulled out your camera—the old fashioned one he’d saved up to buy you for your first birthday after Dad left when he apparently found out you’d been looking it up online—and, after some tussling, you’d convinced him to pose for one _god damnit Yance it’s just one hold still_ frame.

And then there were the two candids you’d gotten. One of him staring out at the Pacific from the Icebox roof, hands in his jacket pockets, the stupid hat you’d knitted him—he’d worn it for _weeks_ , never mind that it was probably one of the worst things you’d ever made, especially compared to the sweaters he seemed to churn out like it was nothing—caught mid-flutter. The other of him asleep after your first real drift together, drooling on his pillow, the worry lines you'd given him—not that _he’d_ ever say that—smoothing until he’d looked almost...happy. You’d never shown him either of those. Never worked up the courage, really. And besides, they’d felt...private, somehow.

After burying the empty casket, you’d burned the two candids, regret settling in your stomach like a familiar weight even as the corners had curled inward on the stovetop. Couldn’t bring yourself to burn the other one, though. The two of you'd been so happy. So carefree. Maybe it'd been selfish, but you hadn't been able to let go.

You kept the stacks of meaningless photos. Juvenile fascinations and moments of inspiration. They surrounded Yancy, the last piece of him you had. Kept him safe. But, after that, you’d stopped believing in things like reasons and destinies and fate. In the optimism that your brother had kept burning brightly in your life, in your heart.

Only seemed fitting, really.

 

 

The conn pod alarms are shrieking at you as you haul open the hatch hiding Gipsy’s manual self-destruct, grunting with exertion. Reflex draws your lids against the salt water streams that cannot touch you through your visor, even as you enter the sequence to begin the meltdown process.

“ _Reactor meltdown in sixty seconds._ ”

The air in your helmet is starting to taste heavier, to feel more sluggish as you force your lungs to breathe in and out. You blink again, this time to dislodge the spots crawling at the edge of your vision, and haul yourself to your feet. Giving your oxygen to Mako had been the right thing to do, you remind yourself. After all, she still had so much left to live for—a future. The sharp intelligence behind her eyes, the resourcefulness she’d displayed when she’d cobbled Gipsy back together, better than new. A bright, _bright_ future. 

It’s only by instinct, years of training in this same conn pod, that you manage to stumble back into your harness. _Yancy’s harness_ , something at the back of your mind whispers, louder than it’s been in almost five years. Almost hold the wrong arm out for the clamp at first, and correct at the last second. Find yourself staring at the hand anyway, brows knitting together, confusion scrabbling against the inside of your skull— _wrong hand wrong arm wrong side wrong_ — 

“ _Fifty seconds_ ,” the AI cheerfully reminds you. Snaps you out of the memories that’d been trying to crawl into the blank spaces in your vision.

You grit your teeth and shake your head, breaths coming harder and harder. Try to focus on your instruments. Your eyes seem unwilling to both look at a single spot, but you can see well enough that you’d apparently cleared the far side of the Breach at some point while you’d crawled over to the self-destruct.

They’re everywhere. You can only see vague outlines through Gipsy’s visor, structures that are... _alien_ is the only word that springs to mind. But your instruments are also detecting movement. A _lot_ of movement. Like a swarm of ants crawling through that kit Mom’d gotten Yancy for Christmas, god, over twenty years ago now.

“ _Forty seconds_.”

Gipsy is still in a slow tumble down through...whatever you’re floating in. You force your arm to move, to purge the remaining fuel from Gipsy’s turbines. Deceleration claws at your skin. Your vision greys as you’re flung forward in your harness, chest feeling like it’s being squeezed by an invisible hand.

“ _Thirty seconds._ ”

When you finally level out, you take a single, gasping breath before practically punching the controls for the evac pod. Sag when the hydraulic arms of your harness take hold more firmly, lift you into the waiting pod and seal it behind you.

“ _Twenty seconds_.”

In the ruddy light, you see the latches holding the hatch cover in place release, the sheet of metal flying away, your pod released a heartbeat later. You have a split second to feel a quick rush of euphoria as you rise, rise, rise, only to slam to a halt. You lift a trembling hand to the clear material in front of you, rotating your head to try to look around. Something approaching panic floods every cell in your body in an icy wave when you see the jagged metal at the lip of the pod’s hatch, catching your pod at the very end of its journey. Furrows of the broken material run in parallel where one of the kaiju—Slattern, probably—must’ve raked its claws over Gipsy’s head.

“ _Ten seconds_ ,” the small voice in your ear reminds you.

 _Everything happens for a reason_ , whispers an equally small voice in your mind, sounding more like Yancy than it’s ever had any right to.

The panic vanishes, replaced by a kind of...calm. The cold displaced by a low warmth that spreads from your chest to your fingertips. Your hand drops back down to your side, and you throw your head back and laugh.

“ _Five_ —”

“You were,” you can barely hear yourself over the alarms, over your own choking laughter, your voice distorted and flat to your own ears, “oh god, you—”

“ _Four_ —”

 “—were right all along.”

“ _Three_ —”

“You always had it—”

“ _Two_ —”

“—all figured out, didn’t you,”

“ _One_.”

“Yanc—”

“ _Reactor meltdown_.”

 

 


	2. Sleeping ('til the day we die)

You wake to the familiar feeling of sheets tangled around your feet. Of a pillow beneath your head and a fan droning softly somewhere in the room. Somewhere in the distance, birds are calling. You crack an eyelid, and feel a frown pull at your forehead.

It’s bright. You hiss in annoyance until your eyes adjust to the sunlight streaming _directly_ into your eye. Just like it did every morning when you were—

Déjà vu almost physically slams into you, and you bolt upright, eyes darting about frantically.

“What the fu—” you trail off as you look around.

Same bookshelf.

Same alarm clock you’d hated for _years_.

Same desk, with the same ever-changing pile of notebooks piled on top of it.

Same spot on the ceiling where Yancy’d accidentally tossed one of your books over his shoulder and it’d hit spine-first, cracking the plaster.

Same bed—

“Morning, Rals,” comes a sleepy mumble from beside you. “Sleep well?”

Had the voice belonged to anyone else, had it not been one you could recognize even if there were a kaiju roaring in your face, you would’ve panicked. Would’ve probably screamed, punching first and asking questions later. Instead, you end up twisting sharply in bed. So sharply, in fact, that you smack your brother in the face with your elbow. His entire body jerks.

So much for not punching first and asking questions later.

“Ow, _jesus_ kiddo,” his words are muffled by the hand he has over his cheek and nose, “watch it, would ya?”

You can feel your jaw hanging open. Something cold rushes through your veins. It’s _not_ panic, you tell yourself. It’s totally not. Your fingers fist the sheets— _the same sheets the two of you had cried together on after Mom died_ —and you ground yourself with that, with the feeling of the fabric between your digits and the way it catches at the torn edges of your nails. You close your eyes, breathe in loudly through your nose, out through your mouth, then open them again.

He’s still holding the side of his face, but the asshole has the audacity to _smirk_ at you past his  fingers.

“You’re not dreaming, Rals. This is real.”

“B-but—” the protest is out your mouth before you can even think about it, that same cold feeling flowing backwards up your throat, “y-y-you’re _dead_. I _felt_ you _die_ , Yance. I was _connected_ to you, I—”

The sheets rustle, and Yancy’s hands close on yours. His skin is warm, _alive_ , and you gulp as your lips snap shut. You raise your eyes from where you’d let them fall, and _fuck_ he doesn’t look like he’s aged a day. Same dark, storm-grey-blue eyes—like the ocean in a hurricane, you’d once told him, and then had to endure his teasing for _weeks_. Same dimples when he smiles just so, like he is now. Same scar on his forehead where you’d accidentally pulled him off the couch and onto the coffee table when you were three.

“I _felt_ it,” you offer up softly, scarcely trusting your own voice. “You died.”

“And now you’re here, too.”

Your mind, which had been filling and churning with circular loops of reason until they’d started to build to a low roar, goes abruptly silent. Still. Centered on a singular thought that blazes against the back of your retinas, at the back of your tongue. You blink. Blink again. Things don’t vanish. His hands are still warm against yours. He’s still smiling at you. Still sprawled half-under the covers. Still radiant, practically glowing, in the light streaming through the windows behind you, the waistband peeking from the edge of the off-white sheets the only hint he’s wearing anything at all . Still—

“Is this—are you _really_ real?” 

His smile turns impossibly soft, and instead of answering with words, he leans forward. A low thrill goes through you, doubt still gnawing at your insides, even as he gets closer and closer and—

And he presses a single kiss against the point where your lips meet, not quite on them, but not quite _not_. It gets a low whine out of you, and he chuckles.

“Did that feel real?”

“But—”

“Raleigh,” his smile is still so gentle, so soft. The pads of his thumbs run circles over the backs of your hands. “Does this feel real to you?”

“I can’t—” the words catch in your throat, though, when he just keeps _staring_ at you. You sigh, frowning. “I mean, I think—”

“If this weren’t real—if it were all in your head—” and, jesus, there he goes again, reading you like a damn book, “—how would this be going?” His thumbs press down a bit harder as his grin turns heated. “I bet there’d be no clothes involved.”

Something rushes through you, gathering itself low in your gut, and you have to look away again as images, possibilities, rush through your mind. It turns to a dull ache that takes up residence deep inside of you where you haven’t let yourself feel anything _for-from-with_ someone else in a long, _long_ time. Not since...not since. You sigh.

“I mean, I guess? Maybe. I-I don’t _know_ , Yance, I—”

One of Yancy’s hands comes up to lift your chin, bringing your gazes back together. The way he’s looking at you, it’s the same way he’d looked at you back when you’d been seventeen with bile at the back of your throat and nerves clawing at your ribcage. When you’d stood at the foot of your shared bunks and been unable to do more than choke on your own voice, had tried to get those three little words out that meant everything and so much more all at once. It’s how he’d looked at you when he’d shifted off his top bunk, the hands you hadn’t even been aware you’d been wringing together suddenly interwoven with his. It’s that same little, _knowing_ smile that’d preceded the words, “It’s okay, Rals.” His three words carrying yours for you. Three words that’d broken down all walls, all barriers, until there’d been nothing but the two of you, entwined so deeply within one another that it was impossible to say where one of you started and the other ended. In that moment you’d believed with a kind of hopeless conviction that nothing would ever keep you apart.

Deep down, the ache... _shifts_. Changes shape. Extends tendrils up into your chest and squeezes.

“So, what do you think, then?” 

“I-I—but, Yancy, I—we’re—” you can feel your chest rising and falling, faster and faster. Pressure behind your eyes. Between your ears. Deep in your chest. A rushing sound fills your mind.

“Tell me what you think, Rals,” he’s still cradling you like something precious, still looking at you in that way that, without saying a word, leaves no room for doubt in your mind about how he feels. “Is this real?”

“Yance,” the pressure in your chest pushes the word out as a half-sob, because _holy fucking shit_ —

“Yance, we’re _dead_.”

He cocks his head to the side. Smile doesn’t falter an inch. The fingers of the hand that’s been propping up your chin run gently over your cheek.

“And?”

“And we’re _dead_ ,” your breaths are coming faster and faster still. “Yancy, we’re dead and this is—this—”

“It’s alright, Rals,” he shifts his body forward until his forehead makes contact with yours. This close, you can count his freckles, can see the dusting of red in his eyelashes. “It’s okay, kiddo. I’m here. I’m here and I’m real and I’m not letting you go again. Ever. Okay?”

“We’re _dead_ ,” you repeat again, feeling your words bouncing off his skin. “We’re _dead_ , Yance. We’re—”

A thought occurs to you. Cuts your rambling off at the root.

“Where—” 

“Our old house, I think,” his voice stays calm, level. “I looked around some before you woke up. Mom and Dad’s room is cleared out, so it looks like this is when it was just the two of us.”

“But—”

“I know, I know,” he cuts you off, and you can hear the soft smile in his voice, “this is supposed to be happy, right? Heaven, or whatever, and all that? I think,” you can feel it as he breathes out through his nose, tone turning pensive, “I think we’re here because, even though it was one of the hardest times in our lives? It was just us. And we were happy.”

“But, _where_ —”

“Oh,” his breath ghosts over your lips, over the skin of your face, warm and sweet and drowning your words. “Dunno. But, Rals? Doesn’t matter, alright? This _is_ real, I promise. Okay?”

“Yance—” Your chest feels tight, wrong  somehow.

“ _Okay_?”

“I—” you gulp a breath down, then another, unable to look away from the sincerity in those eyes. Your pulse is pounding in your ears, jackhammering at your skull. “Yance, how—”

Your vision blurs, narrows, making his eyes look like small windows into the ocean at the end of a long tunnel. Your body feels like it’s not shaped properly, like your limbs are too long but your skin too tight.

“Rals, kiddo,” you feel Yancy’s thumbs swiping over your face, clearing away the blur but leaving the black, his voice sounding distant, far off, “it’s okay. Breathe with me, alright? Can you do that?”

“I—” you can feel your mouth working, trying to form words—what words, you’re not sure—even as nothing comes out. “I-I—”

“Here, see?” Distantly, you can feel one of his hands wrap around yours, feel it maneuvered until your palm is against the warm skin of his chest. Against the ridges of muscle and bone, rippling as his chest expands.

“In—” you find yourself breathing in and holding it without even thinking about it, “—and out—” and releasing when you feel Yancy’s chest shrink back in on itself. “ _Good_. Really good, kiddo. Let’s do it again, okay?”

Time moves around you in sluggish waves, measured only in the rise and fall of your brother’s chest, in the heartbeats you can feel through your fingertips. It isn’t until you can see again, Yancy’s forehead still pressed solidly against your own, that you feel the pressure in your ribcage finally give way. A breath, larger than you would’ve thought possible, rushes from your lungs in a sigh, taking the cold with it. As it does, you lean forward without really thinking about it, your forehead resting just above Yancy’s collarbone.

“‘M sorry,” you mumble into his skin. This close, you feel more than hear the low sound he makes.

“Don’t worry. I get it. It’s...a lot.”

You nod, humming deep in your throat when his fingers card through your hair.

“So,” the word wavers a bit on the end as Yancy draws it out, and you frown, pulling back far enough to look him in the eyes. He’s chewing the inside of his bottom lip. “You okay?”

“I—yes.”

The affirmation tastes foreign in your mouth, but solid. Real. _True_. 

“Yes.”

The truth lends strength to your limbs, burning through your mind like a clarion call of magnesium white. You’re really here. _He’s_ really here. _Yancy’s_ here. You’re face to face with your brother again. Your reason. Your rock. The only person you’ve ever—

“Yes, _yes_ , I—”

You push yourself further between Yancy’s arms, wrap your own around his neck, leaping forward until you’re practically in his lap. The two of you nearly topple off the bed when he goes down with a _whoomf_ of expelled air, your legs straddling his hips. Something pulses sluggishly through your veins, hot and pleasant, at the sight of him—your big brother—prostrate on his back, grinning up at you like that. So open. So uninhibited. So— 

At the back of your mind, you feel his brushing against yours, and the border between them comes down without a moment’s hesitation. Your brother’s happiness—so deliriously _happy_ together you’re _together_ again—breaks over you. Surrounds you. Fills you up until you can’t help but smile.

You press an open-mouthed kiss to the point where his neck meets his skull. Breathe him in, the scents of _home_ and _Yancy_ one and the same in your mind. Feel him shudder lightly under you before he—

Before he starts _laughing_. You prop yourself up, frowning down at him. Can feel your mouth pushed out in a pout. Can’t find it within yourself to care.

“What?”

That smile. That fucking gorgeous, full-toothed smile. You could look at that smile for the rest of your life—afterlife?—and never get tired of it.

“I missed you, Rals,” Yancy’s smile loses some of its edge, corners not lifted quite as high. “It’s been kinda lonely here sometimes.”

You let out a breath through your nose, looking away then back up at him. Feel something clench in your gut at the sadness you can see reflected there, no matter how far he’s tried to bury it. No matter how long you two have been apart, Yancy is still your brother, and you’re still his. Still the same two people who grew up together, who learned each and every part of one another. He’s never been able to hide anything from you before. This is no different.

“I’m sorry.”

The sadness vanishes as quickly as it’d come, and he snorts.

“Not like you could’ve done anything.”

“Not true. I could’ve—”

“Died sooner?”

You huff. Feel your face heat.

“No.”

“Good,” he nods up at you. “I raised you better than that.”

You punch him in the arm. Lightly, though. He grunts appropriately, nudging you in the side with his knee.

“Stop sounding like Dad or something. Making it weird.”

“Well, _unlike_ the asshole who pretended to be our Dad,” Yancy’s brows pinch together for the briefest of moments before relaxing, “ _I_ actually love you. And I’m gonna keep loving you from here until further on.”

You lean back. Blink down at him.

“Er, okay,” you shift your knees a bit, the mattress creaking, “I’ll just ask then. We’re dead, Yance. What could possibly be ‘further’ from that?”

“Forever.” His smile practically splits in half. He looks so damn _proud_ of himself. “Further is forever, kiddo.”

“Oh my god, Yance,” it’s your turn to snort as you lean down to nip at the corner of his mouth, “that was probably the sweetest thing you’ve ever said. And it made no fucking sense. What, did you _practice_ that?”

“Oh shut up,” he huffs, but this close you can feel his smile getting impossibly wider even as his face heats. “Maybe. What else was I gonna do to fill the time until you woke up? Brat.”

“Ass,” you retort, headbutting him lightly. “Remember, _I_ was the one who always came and jumped on _your_ bed until you woke up.”

“Yeah,” he headbutts you back, even more affectionately—if that were somehow possible, “because _you_ would always drag me out of my own damn room in the middle of the night to cuddle.”

“Only because _you_ insisted on actually staying in your own room for those first two weeks.”

You glance around. Spot the corners of both of your superhero capes sticking out from the bottom drawer of your dresser. The same ones the two of you’d chased each other around in while travelling for your dad’s work. So, wherever—whenever, _what_ ever—this is, it’s after those two weeks. After Yancy’d stopped running from the path that led you to the foot of those bunkbeds, to that midnight confession years later. Before the world had gone to absolute hell. When life had been simple. Easy. Just the two of you, together.

Yeah. Definitely the happiest time of your life.

“It’s okay, though,” you look back down at your brother, sticking your tongue out. “I forgave you a long time ago for being such a dumbass.”

When you feel him draw a breath to say something back, you decide that it’s probably in both of your best interests to shut him up. Besides, you need to find out if that smile still tastes as good as you remember.

 

 

It does.

 

 


End file.
